Rethinking Korean Society

2021 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 227-230
Author(s):  
Hangsub Choi
Keyword(s):  
Korean Society

Korea's Confucian Culture of Learning as a Gateway to Christianity: Protestant Missions in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries

2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-56
Author(s):  
K. Kale Yu
Keyword(s):  
Close Association ◽  
Cultural Value ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Confucian Culture ◽  
Korean Society ◽  
Culture Of Learning ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Christian Literature ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Protestant Missions

As Protestant missionaries landed on Korean shores in the late nineteenth century, a great deal of effort went into creating a Christian identity using literacy and literature as cornerstones of missional strategy that would become the benchmark of the Christian experience for Koreans. The relationship between the Protestant missions' emphasis on reading and Korea's Confucian culture of learning is of particular importance for an understanding of the growth of Christianity in Korea because Christianity's close association with literacy and sacred writings energised the Confucian imagination of Korean culture. Perceiving the reading of Christian literature, including the bible, as a salient way to salvation, Koreans turned to reading and memorising the scriptures to experience the manifestation of God's revelation. The high respect afforded to education and learning as a dominant cultural value constitutes an important, if overlooked, element in the replication of faith in Korean society that reproduced the gospel under their own familiar terms.

Ecology, Dharma and Direct Action: A Brief Survey of Contemporary Eco-Buddhist Activism in Korea

2015 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 293-311
Author(s):  
Young-Hae Yoon ◽  
Sherwin Jones
Keyword(s):  
Social Engagement ◽  
Direct Action ◽  
Social Activism ◽  
Turn Of The Millennium ◽  
Hunger Strike ◽  
Korean Society ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Reclamation Project ◽  
Self Immolation

Over the last few decades there has emerged a small, yet influential eco-Buddhism movement in South Korea which, since the turn of the millennium, has seen several S?n (J. Zen) Buddhist clerics engage in high-profile protests and activism campaigns opposing massive development projects which threatened widespread ecological destruction. This article will survey the issues and events surrounding three such protests; the 2003 samboilbae, or ‘threesteps- one-bow’, march led by Venerable Suky?ng against the Saemangeum Reclamation Project, Venerable Jiyul’s Anti-Mt. Ch?ns?ng tunnel hunger-strike campaign between 2002 and 2006, and lastly Venerable Munsu’s self-immolation protesting the Four Rivers Project in 2010. This article will additionally analyze the attempts by these clerics to deploy innovative and distinctively Buddhist forms of protest, the effects of these protests, and how these protests have altered public perceptions of the role of Buddhist clergy in Korean society. This study will additionally highlight issues relevant to the broader discourse regarding the intersection of Buddhism and social activism, such as the appropriation of traditional Buddhist practices as protest tactics and the potential for conflict between social engagement and the pursuit of Buddhist soteriological goals.

Jaycustomers and Kapzil-Culture in Korean Society

2018 ◽  
Vol 27 (5) ◽  
pp. 207-222
Author(s):  
Sun-Bai Cho
Keyword(s):  
Korean Society

N. V. Kyuner (1877-1955): ‘Korea in the Second Half of the 18th Century.’ The Unpublished Typescript

2018 ◽  
pp. 24-37
Author(s):  
Nataliya A. Chesnokova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
Far East ◽  
Development Stage ◽  
State University ◽  
Korean Society ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Foreign Policies ◽  
History Of ◽  
Crown Prince ◽  
Eastern Institute

Nikolai Vasilievich Kyuner (1877-1955) was a Russian Orientalist. Having graduated with merit from the St. Petersburg State University, he was sent to the Far East and spent there two years. Having returned, he was appointed head of the department of historical and geographical sciences at the Eastern Institute (Vladivostok) in 1904. Kyuner was one of the first Orientalists to teach courses in history, geography, and ethnography. His works number over 400. The article studies a typescript of his unpublished study ‘Korea in the second half of the 18th century’ now stored in the Archive of the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences (St. Petersburg). Little known to Russian Koreanists, it nevertheless retains its scientific significance as one of the earliest attempts to study the history of the ‘golden age’ of Korea. The date of the typescript is not known, though analysis of the citations places its completion between 1931 and 1940. The article is to introduce the typescript into scientific use and to verify some facts and terms. N. V. Kuyner’s typescript consists of 8 sections: (1) ‘Introduction. Sources review’; (2) ‘General characteristics of the social development stage of Korea in the second half of the 18th century’; (3) ‘Great impoverishment of the country’; (4) ‘Peasantry’; (5) ‘Cities’; (6) ‘Popular revolts’; (7) ‘Military bureaucratic regime’; (8) ‘The Great Collection of Laws’ (a legal code). There are excerpts from foreign and national publications of the 19th - early 20th century, and there’s also some valuable information on Korean legal codes and encyclopedias of the 18th century, which have not yet been translated into any European languages. The typescript addresses socio-economic situation in Korea in the 18th century; struggles of the court cliques of the 16th-18th centuries and their role in inner and foreign policies of the country; social structure of the society and problems of the peasantry; role of trade in the development of the Middle Korean society; legal proceedings and legislation, etc. One of the first among Russian Koreanistics, N. V. Kyuner examined causes of sasaek (Korean ‘parties’) formation and the following events, linking together unstable situation in the country, national isolation, and execution of Crown Prince Sado (1735-1762).

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